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Our general education system suffers from a major defect in that it
does not produce marketable skills. Colleges and universities have
been churning out graduates since long in arts and sciences with no
practical orientation to real life of commerce and industry, who can
only find placement in public sector jobs where skills are irrelevant
to appointment. Institutions for medicine, law, accountancy, engineering,
agriculture and such professional vocations have been there since
long in the public sector, where the capacity is far short of demand
and admissions carry high premiums. The standards in these institutions
are not exactly globally competitive but adequate as a qualification
for public sector employment with the right push.
Over the past decade or so, specialised institutes have spawned all
over the country like mushrooms after rains in the desert. Lead by
institutions like IBA and LUMS, management sciences have became the
buzz word for luncheon tickets in the corporate and multinational
sectors. Every neighbourhood in large cities has some fancy sounding
institution claiming to produce business wizards. An MBA has become
as ubiquitous and as highly likely to remain jobless as a BA degree
was a decade ago.
The other area, more murky and spurious, is the IT sector, where street
corner institutes have started ripping off young aspirants who dream
of lucrative careers in this high-tech field. With no regulation for
running IT training establishments, most of the students end up learning
redundant languages and systems that have little bearing to latest
technology being used by their potential employers.
Agriculture, the retarded elder brother of the economy, suffers for
lack relevant education the same way, and perhaps even more than other
technical sectors. The curriculum of the few agricultural universities
- Faisalabad, Tando Jam, Peshawar etc. - is mostly driven by the vision
of Sir Robert Williams who wrote the standard textbook "Agriculture
in Punjab" in 1921, which was last revised by a Sikh professor
in 1949. The degrees offered by agricultural universities - BSc and
MSc - are based on purely fundamental knowledge in cytogenetics, physiology,
pathology, entomology and a bit of agricultural economics. The graduates
from these universities are the stable fodder for agriculture research
and extension departments in all the provinces. Some of the more entrepreneurial
students end up in pesticide and fertilizer supply companies in the
private sector.
A peculiarity common to all technical and professional institutes
is that they don't teach or groom entrepreneurship. Most LUMS or IBA
graduates make a beeline for foreign banks and multinationals; hardly
anyone trying to create a business venture on their own steam. Similarly
in agriculture, all graduates move into paid jobs; none trying to
make a business venture out of farming themselves.
We, as a society, have a disproportionate awe for scholarly knowledge,
perhaps as a conditioning of theological habits. In agriculture, as
in other industries, knowledge passes through three phases: First
is the fundamental knowledge that is discovered through research in
the laboratories. This is has no commercial value what so ever. Second
is the development phase where the fundamental knowledge is adapted
to create a production technology - a machine, a technology, an integrated
manufacturing plant etc. The third phase is where the business entrepreneur
uses the benefits of the first two phases for commercial production
or service or whatever. In the developed countries there is a seamless
integration between the three phases that are executed by different
agencies or entities. In Pakistan we rarely go beyond the first phase,
especially in agriculture. That is why the obsession with having more
PhDs. Our agriculture education system is geared towards this end
alone.
If we were to analyse the problems on the farm level today, for an
agricultural entrepreneur, I would put engineering problems at 40
percent, production management problems at 35 percent, managing local
officialdom at 15 percent and agronomical problems at 10 percent.
The curriculum of the universities and the support provided by agricultural
departments is focussed on the last 10 percent, i.e. agronomical problems.
The major bulk of the problematic areas are left unattended.
I put engineering at the top of the priority list because of the need
to replace the five thousand year old 'Mohejo Daro' technology with
indigenously developed modern technologies in irrigation, soil tillage,
planting, plant protection and harvesting methods. Imported technologies
are too expensive and not readily adaptable to our conditions. Current
technology (or mechanisation with tractors and tubewells) is extremely
inefficient in use of water and soil fertility. The Engineering Department
of provincial governments is a misnomer since it is only a facilitator
of providing subsidised bulldozers and tubewell rigs.
Farm management is a blank area. Running a farm enterprise is no different
than running any other production unit except that the variables involved
are of a totally different nature. Farm management is a specialised
science today and treated as distinctly separate from general business
management sciences. Pakistan does not have a single farm management
institute: in fact even the need for it is not recognised. Coordinating
the natural resources at a given farm area for optimum use of water,
soil and climate requires tools of linear programming and good financial
understanding of the agribusiness. Crop production is more than simply
following instructions of agricultural department in irrigation, fertilizer
application and plant protection. It requires efficient deployment
of resources at hand - water, machines, labour and capital. A farm
manager has to keep track of finances for overall profitability of
the enterprise and also to breakdown cost centres into individual
crops and their efficiencies in use of limited resources. e.g. return
of use of water, labour, capital, land etc.
Agriculture education needs to be revamped for producing i) farm technicians
who are well versed in efficient utilisation of new technologies and
ii) farm managers who can plan, execute and monitor agricultural production,
like any other business venture. In most cases, since farm sizes are
small and medium, the education for technicians and managers should
be imparted to farmers. A good farmer performs multiple tasks himself
from manager to operator. Very few farms have the size and the economies
to engage specialised managers and technicians as specialists. The
most efficient way to provide good management support to farmers is
to have local experts who can provide these services against a reasonable
fee and teach farmers over time how to do it themselves.
I have been lamenting about neglect in human resource development
through my columns repeatedly. Agriculture is perhaps the most seriously
deprived area! Every government, every economist, all donors keep
harping about the holy grail of 'yield per acre'. But how? Without
human resources it is not possible.
Agriculture has evolved from a subsistence activity of medieval times
to a commercial enterprise in 19th and 20th centuries and is now evolving
into an 'applied science' in the 21st century. Farmers in developed
countries are scientists and managers in their own right. We need
to produce such individuals with the knowledge to harness water, soil,
genetic materials and weather in a scientific way to produce foods
and fibres efficiently without effecting ecological balance of elements
in nature. This requires a combination of science, technology and
management.
Producing more academics (PhDs) and throwing inputs at farmers will
not bring about a new green revolution. Agricultural productivity
is more a function of the mind than land and resources today.
Iqbal Mustafa
1217 words
20 November 2004
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